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‘The following resolution was carried: That is is advisable a Football Association should be formed for the purpose of settling a code of rules for the regulation of the game of football.’ On 26 October 1863, 11 football clubs and schools from London met at The Freemasons’ Tavern to form the Football Association and to agree on a code of football rules. We thought we’d mark this historic day by posting three contemporary newspaper stories that report on this momentous …

John Thomson, the Kirkcaldy-born goalkeeper for Celtic and the Scotland, died on 5 September 1931, after suffering a fractured skull in an accidental collision with Sam English of Rangers – Thomson was 22 years old. Around 30,000 people attended Thomson’s funeral in Cardenden, Fife – many of whom had walked the 55 miles from Glasgow. To mark one of the saddest days in the history of Scottish football, here are some photos of John Thomson. Quem di diligunt, adulescens moritur. …

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On 30 November 1872, Scotland played England in the first ever official international football match. The match was played on St Andrew’s Day at the West of Scotland Cricket Club ground at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, Glasgow, and 5,000 fans watched the game. Although the game ended 0-0, those of a tartan persuasion will very likely tell you that Scotland should have won by a barrowload and that, indeed, it was grand ‘moral victory’ for Scotland. Hmm, perhaps. Included below are some …

In The British Newspaper Archive we found the first ever English match to be reported in a newspaper – the match between Sheffield FC and Hallam FC at Bramall Lane Cricket Ground on 29 December 1862. Played according to ‘Sheffield Rules’, the match sounds like it might have been a little rough in places, with ‘waistcoats’ being thrown off, as the intensity of the match heightened. It seems that the long interval at half-time also caused some raised eyebrows among …